I've only read a couple translated novels but I >don't like the idea at all. I always feel like I'm not getting the real >deal. Like I must be missing out on all the little beautiful languagey >details that can only be read in the language it was written in originally. >Imagine telling someone who doesn't speak english to read a translation of >Catcher in the Rye. It would worry me to death. I know the "plot" would be >the same but would it be the same book? I don't know. I doubt it. >Anyway, that bothers me and I wonder if I'm the only one... > I've thought about a translation of Catcher as well, and have had many of the same feelings. Salinger's exact words are just about half the novel. I share your feeling of loss in reading translated literature, particularly in Camus or Sartre, but they may have been inaccessible in French as well, for all I know. But PLEASE don't let that keep you from reading translated novels; you'll miss so much, seriously. I haven't read Garcia Marquez's aforementioned masterpiece (yet, I hope), but I have read translations of "Like Water for Chocolate" and "Kiss of the Spiderwoman", and they are both beautiful, moving, and entirely unique works, particularly the latter. Don't forget, English is a particularly literary and beautiful language itself, if used with skill. Brendan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com